Blogging From Beijing

Decisive

When I was a student at Tsinghua, I remember constantly complaining about the cafeteria food. In general, I struggled getting the amount of protein I needed, and a lot of the food was oily. Picking which vegetables to eat was always difficult, because so many of them seemed to just soak in salty, oily brine.

Campus has a number of cafeterias; this one was my favorite. Each floor has perhaps 10 stalls, and each stall on a floor is loosely affiliated with one style/region of food. This cafeteria was my favorite because the fourth floor is devoted to Sichuan cuisine.

热饮冷饮 – Hot Beverages and Cold Beverages 西式面- Western Style Bread

Although I consistently fretted over protein and oily vegetables, the food was good and -perhaps most importantly- cheap. Here are examples of what I ate:

I spent an average of RMB 20 per meal (something akin to $3). I’m certain that this is the best cafeteria food that one can buy for $3.

Tsinghua also taught me another certainty: Donald Trump is set for failure regarding the coming trade deal with China. Let me show you:

Consumption-led growth. The decisive role of the market. Tsinghua has an amazing library. I was floored that there were so many books in foreign languages (the English selection is enormous). I was also floored to see that many Chinese think-tank publications on economic reform were translated into English. I devoured them, nodding my head in agreement and proud at the tough policy recommendations they made: transfer state wealth to Chinese people in order to have a balanced economy.

The Chinese economic model is built upon transferring wealth from households, consumers, and savers to corporations, producers, and investors. This is best seen in China’s comically low household consumption rate.

As China’s economic model has progressed, Chinese households have enjoyed an increasingly small share of the nation’s wealth. Corporations, both ‘private’ and state-owned, have enjoyed an increasingly large share of the nation’s wealth (as has the richest in China). This ‘problem’ has been on the Chinese government’s radar since at least 2007.

However, economic reform wasn’t planned until Chairman Xi Jinping took over in 2013. Economic reform plans were immediately organized:

1.) The market had been defined as a “basic” role in allocating resources since the country decided to build a socialist market economy in 1992. In 2013, The Communist Party of China defined the market’s role as “decisive” in allocating resources. This importance cannot be underestimated.

It is common for state-owned enterprises to have pictures to pay homage to Chairman Xi in their lobby (Forgive the poor quality).

2.) On November 12, 2013 in the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, Chairman Xi said the following regarding China’s economic reform:

The key to establishing a sound socialist market economy lies in striking proper balance between the role of the government and that of the market, so that the market can play a decisive role in allocating resources and the government can play its own role more effectively… Letting the market play a decisive role in allocating resources will mainly require economic reforms, but it will also inevitable affect politics, culture, society, ecological progress, and Party building.

3.) On April 8, 2013 at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, Chairman Xi said the following regarding China’s economic reform:

We will continue to enhance the rule of law and actively improve our investment environment so that all enterprises can enjoy equal access to the factors of production, market competition, legal protection. The Chinese market can become fairer and even more attractive… China will never close it’s door to the outside world… We will open up new areas and enable deeper access… We firmly oppose protectionism in any form, and we are willing and ready to solve economic and trade differences with other countries through consultation.

4.) On May 26th, 2014 at the 15th Group Study Session of the Political Bureau of the 18th CPC Centeral Committee, Chairman Xi said the following regarding China’s economic reform:

We should reduce the government’s involvement in resource allocation and its direct interference in microeconomic activities. We should step up efforts to develop a uniform market system characterized by openness and orderly competition, and set fair, open, and transparent market rules.

5.) In 2017 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Chairman Xi said the following regarding ‘free trade:’

Whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean that you cannot escape from. Any attempt to cut off the flow of capital, technologies, products, industries, and people between economies, and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks, is simply not possible.

These books which I vociferously read at Tsinghua are remnants, relics of this forgone economic reform. Chairman Xi’s economic reforms, as I have been writing about for the past two years, have been complete failure. China is backtracking on reform, encouraging state-backed growth, reducing competition, and exacerbating the economic slowdown already underway. According to Ruchir Sharma at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, it now takes $3 of debt to create a dollar of growth in China. In the face of economic reform failure, China is pumping debt into large state-backed corporates while the private sector is squeezed out.

A Chinese dictator tried to force reform. That reform failed.

The United States is seeking the following changes in the Chinese economy: trade deficit reduction, IP protection, cease market distorting subsidies, end of cyber intrusions, and end technology transfer.

The idea that the United States would be able to force large, structural reform in China when a Chinese dictator could not is absolutely ridiculous. The idea that Beijing is unable to move on the US requests, most made 9 months or even years ago (IP Protection), and that another 60 days will be enough time for them, seems somehow more ridiculous. The hubris of the United States position is overwhelming. The Xi speeches, the policy reports from think tanks, these are fossils of failure that the United States should heed.

CNBC is also reporting that President Donald Trump said he will be discussing the criminal charges against Huawei with US attorneys and attorney general in the coming weeks. Is the United States judiciary no longer independent? If the United States accepts a trade deal that backs Chinese purchases of US goods to reduce the trade deficit, America is run by a spineless swamp with no sense of the lack of economic freedoms that put the US in this position to begin with.

The White House would do well to look at Chinese economic planning relics from 2013 or read Chairman Xi’s speeches.